Gonzales : No new water company being formed

PUBLIC Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales has rejected claims by the Opposition UNC that government plans to form a new water management company to replace the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA).

He was responding to a question from Opposition Senator Wade Mark in the Senate on June 11.

Mark asked when  the executive packages of the approximately 200 retrenched WASA managers would take effect and whether this was part of the authority’s restructuring exercise to form "the new water management company."

Gonzales said, "This question is based on a false premise, since no decision has been taken to form a new water management company in Trinidad and Tobago."

On WASA's proposed restructuring, he continued, several reports, including the 2020 report of Cabinet's sub-committee on the authority, had indicated that its top management was grossly overstaffed and needed to be significantly reduced.

Gonzales agreed with this position.

"In this regard, the organisation redesign process has been guided by the development of a transformation plan. The top management structure for the 34 top leadership positions has been approved and the human resource sub-committee of Cabinet is still determining the compensation packages for these positions."

Gonzales said people have been identified for nine leadership posts in WASA: CEO, directors of corporate finance; people, transformation and central services; technology, future systems and sustainability; water management, Tobago; and water management directors for northwest, northeast, south and central Trinidad.

He told senators that once the top leadership has been contractually engaged, "the next levels of management will be restructured, guided by the transformation plan.

"The top leadership will participate in the decision in relation to the next level of management for these positions."

Gonzales promised there will be consultation with the recognised majority trade union at WASA, the Public Services Association (PSA), as this process is rolled out.

"Until that consultation takes place, there will be no final decision to the precise size of the management team and the various options for separation, which will be agreed upon between the authority and the representative union."

Government senators thumped their desks as Gonzales said, "This whole idea of a new water management company is UNC's foolishness, disguised to mislead the people of Trinidad and Tobago."

Mark claimed Gonzales was "acting jittery."

He repeated the UNC's allegation that government plans to retrench 3,000 workers from WASA.

Gonzales rejected this claim.

He said, "It is in a 2013 document submitted to the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) by the then UNC government that 2,500 workers were earmarked to be dismissed from WASA."

Gonzales added this document was signed by Ganga Singh, who was WASA CEO and Environment and Water Resources Minister at different times during the May 2010- September 2015 tenure of the UNC-led People's Partnership (PP) coalition government.

Singh, he continued, approached the IDB for a $1.5 billion loan and told the bank "he was going to restructure WASA and on that basis, 2,500 workers will be dismissed from the authority."

Gonzales said this situation subsequently got worse.

"They got $500 million to engage in a VSEP (voluntary separation of employment) package to separate these WASA workers."

Gonzales said 1,000 workers participated in that VSEP package and "as they exit the authority, they entered by another door, costing the people of TT over $500 million."

He added that the UNC must account "for that scandalous waste of taxpayers' money and their scandalous behaviour in the water sector in TT."